A hygienic liquid dispensing system includes a container for the liquid (e.g., water) to be dispensed, wherein the container is generally a bottle having a neck surrounding an aperture. The bottle may be loaded into a dispenser by lifting and inverting the bottle and placing the neck into a receptacle in the dispenser, which is adapted to hold the bottle in the inverted position. The water can then be discharged through an aperture through a tube or other passageway formed in the receptacle and into a chamber in the dispenser. A user may then draw water from the chamber through a stop valve.
Dispensers for water often include a sharp probe which is used to puncture a cap on the water container when the container is placed in the dispenser. However, the sharpness of the probe can result in injuries when a hand or fingers of a person contact the sharp probe area during cleaning or positioning the water container. Other conventional bottle caps are removed when the dispenser does not include a probe and the bottle top is exposed when inverted, so that water tends to spill out of the bottle. Thus, there is a need for a hygienic bottle cap which reduces the amount of spillage that occurs and which does not require a large amount of force to pierce the cap so that a safer probe in the dispenser may be used.